


The D Word

by Hope



Category: Supernatural, The L Word
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Femslash, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-13
Updated: 2006-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:54:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/42972.html</p></blockquote>





	The D Word

*

Fence jumping, Sam thinks, has become a metaphor for something in his life. Or not so much a metaphor as a signpost. Because it's just become something that he doesn't even feel bitter about any more. Or, you know, maybe _bitter_'s not the right word. More like -- something he doesn't think about any more. He no longer thinks, _fence jumping. Now there's something I never thought I'd do again_ as the muscles in his biceps are trembling a little from the sudden surge of exertion, ankles creaking after the at the sudden shock of impact.

Instead, he can jump a number of fences in quick succession (not to mention dodging topiaries, lawn loungers and dog kennels) thinking instead about how it has all come to be some giant metaphor. Signpost. Thing. A _not-_metaphor. Something he _doesn't_ think about.

And he's so busy not thinking that he doesn't realise for a few steps that Dean's not beside him anymore. Gets a flash-glimpse of the aqua of the next yard's pool, then he's dropping down, reeling back, thinking _fucking **fuck**_; cursing the goddamn possessed poodle or whatever the hell they were hunting out, cursing even more the freaking _security guards_ posted at demon-poodle's house. _Fucking California_, a mental growl, and huh, signpost. Or maybe not, because he can't actually even just think that without a twinge of hypocrisy. Not that he'd ever admit that aloud, especially to Dean.

Who is lying on the grass of this particular well-groomed lawn, body keeling a little, choking like he's got a mouthful of cud -- which he probably does. Looking as if he's just slammed face-first into the ground with a good deal of momentum behind him.

Sam's heart's still pounding with the rhythm of their flight, energy sparking between his fingertips and head spinning a little as he leans down and grabs Dean's shoulder, hauling at him -- "Come _on_, Dean, we gotta--" then, oh _fuck_, reeling away like he's been administered an electric shock.

Not that there's anything _wrong_ with Dean, just that he's not… he's not _right_…

Dean rolls the rest of the way over on to his back, and he's still kinda jerkily clawing at his own chest, making this choking sound, despite the fact his mouth is clear of the grass now. Sam's only forced to tear his eyes away when a half-shriek comes from behind him.

She's tiny, barefoot and she has hair and eyes like she's just stepped out of a freaking Burton animation. She's clutching her necklace, the point of a long V pulled taut down from her neck. "What the hell?" she shouts, gaze flicking rapidly between Sam and Dean as she takes wary steps back toward the garden house she's just emerged from. "Who… who are you? What are you _doing_ in my yard?"

Her fist whitens as she clenches it tighter around her pendant and _oh_. _Oh, you **fucker**_. Her eyes widen and she focuses solely on Sam as he stalks forward, Dean still making weird noises behind him, several tones higher than they really ought to be.

"What," Sam grits out, just as the woman says--

"I'll scream, if you touch me I'll--"

and Sam makes this growling sound, that, huh, is pretty effective in getting her mouth to click shut, and he tries again, "_What_ did you do to my brother?"

"Brother? I--" Her face twists a little in confusion, and then Sam can see the realization wash over her features, an admission of guilt if he's ever seen one, as she turns wide eyes back to Dean. "_Oh_," she says. "Oh, _fuck_…"

*

She makes him a coffee with a tiny espresso machine on a huge kitchen bench, and Sam wraps his hands around the café-style mug and tries not to listen to the sound of Dean throwing up in the guest bathroom. She still looks a bit shifty, and not entirely like she's not going to puke herself, and settles on a stool on the opposite side of the bench to Sam.

"My… friend gave it to me," she says, and they both look at the pendant where it sits on the bench between them. "I never thought that… that it would even _work_\--"

"And yet you were doing it anyway."

Her gaze slides again, guiltily, and her fingers twitch around her own cup. Sam contemplates grabbing the polished marble chopping board on the bench and slamming it down onto the pendant; contemplates grabbing the woman and shaking her til her stupid goth-doll hair wraps around her own throat and possibly chokes her. "Why the hell did you want to turn your fiancé into a woman, anyway?"

She ducks her head, abandoning the coffee cup to fiddle with her hands in her lap. "It's… complicated," she says, and Sam feels an abrupt surge of outrage on behalf of All Men that feels almost primal. The gall of her to think she had the right to take away _anyone's_ dick…

He slams his mug down abruptly. "I'll be right back," he says, and she's still not looking him in the eye.

There's only been silence coming from the bathroom for a while, and Sam taps on the door hesitantly with a fingernail before pushing it open a crack. "Dean?"

Dean's standing in front of the mirror, shirtless, his fly open and edges of his jeans slouching over his hips, rumpling the fabric of his shorts. His hands are full of… well, breasts.

"Dude," Dean says, pushing his breasts flatter, then together, then up. Sam takes a shaky breath. "I'm a _chick_."

"Yeah," Sam swallows, says again a little steadier, "yeah, I got that. How are you feeling?"

Dean gives him the _I cannot believe you just asked that, bitch, and you'd best be grateful I'm not kicking your ass for it right now_ look, which then kind of morphs into something a bit more thoughtful. His gaze shifts from Sam's face, moves somewhat speculatively down Sam's body, lingering in a couple of places before he looks back up and shrugs. "Gay," he says, and abruptly lets go of his breasts to shove a hand into his boxers.

Sam gapes for a moment before he gathers the presence of mind to clap a hand over his eyes, which doesn't stop the visual echoes of the… of the _bouncing_. "Dean, would you--" Wishing he didn't sound so strangled, Sam drags his hand down his face, allowing it to pull his chin down, keeping his gaze firmly _below_ the vicinity of Dean's -- Dean's _breasts_, for fuck's sake -- which actually isn't that great a plan, though at least whatever's going on there is out of sight; just Dean's wrist stretching out the waistband of his shorts as he maneuvers his hand around. "Jesus _Christ_, Dean--"

"What?" Dean says, not stopping, and his voice still has that rich, confident body to it that Sam's brain has always somewhat incongruously linked to the word _swagger_. It's higher, though. And that alone is enough to turn the tone into something else _entirely_. "Seeing as I've got it all, might as well test out the--ow, _fuck_." Dean stops moving his hand, squirms his hips a little.

"_Dean_," Sam says again, grimacing and shifting his gaze firmly to Dean's face. "Would you just--"

"_What,_ Sam?" Dean pulls his hand out of his pants, returns Sam's look with a glare. "I think that _I'm_ the one who's lost his dick here, so you can just cut your whining the hell _out_ and let me do my fucking thing."

Sam shuts his mouth. The man has a point. Or not the _man_, the… fuck.

The edge of Dean's mouth curls a little, eyes softening as he takes in Sam's clenched jaw. Dean brings his hand up to his face, holds his fingers under his nose, darts out his tongue. Sam grits his teeth and Dean grins. "So, you found out a way to turn me back? That's why you're in here, right?"

Sam barely holds back a sigh of relief as Dean reaches for his shirt, pulls it on over his shoulders. Dean's arms are still muscled, but sleeker, the curve of his shoulders a bit softer. Everything's a little bit _rounder_. "Not yet," Sam says, watching the mirror as Dean's hands -- still Dean's hands, just a little narrower -- thread the buttons through the buttonholes. Dean's hands smooth over Dean's belly. The shirt doesn't hang right.

"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam meets his eyes in the mirror. "We'll figure it out, it'll be okay."

Sam kinda wants to laugh and say, _you're the one who's lost his dick here_, but his throat's kinda tightened up and isn't much use for speaking right now, so he just nods fiercely.

*

Jenny lets them stay in her garden house, where Sam takes the day bed and Dean a fold-out cot they hauled from Jenny's basement. Sam walks three blocks to where they left the car and parks it in Jenny's garage. She lets them have the pendant too, and the print-out of the incantation she was using when Dean happened to run past the window.

Sam can't find a counter-spell. Not on the website Jenny printed the first one from, not anywhere else on the goddamn internet. He can't find anything about the pendant either, and Jenny gets all worked up whenever he tries to get a more detailed explanation than "It was a gift!" There's nothing even remotely resembling the pendant in Dad's journal, and it's like nothing _they've_ ever seen before. Or at least… Dean examines the vague orchid-shape of it and raises an eyebrow before handing it back to Sam.

Sam suggests Dean needs new clothes. Dean suggests they save their money, and anyway, he's making do just fine with what he keeps in his duffel. Tee-shirts tighter across the chest than the shoulders now, and overshirts worn open instead of half-buttoned. He's flat-chested enough not to actually _need_ a bra, but still, there's no mistaking that Dean is, in fact, female. The change hasn't added on any extra body fat, but the bone structure in his hips has changed enough that his jeans cling in a slightly different way, and if it were cold enough to wear his jacket, pulling it closed would outline a definite curve in his torso.

"I should get one of those shirts," Dean says, sprawled on one of Jenny's loungers, talking around a mouthful of sandwich. "You know -- _Nobody knows I'm a lesbian_."

Sam snorts, casting a critical eye over Dean's fluffy-short hair, the jeans, the flannel shirt, then takes another swig of iced tea and turns over another useless printout. "Don't think that's likely to be the case. Anyway, _Help me, I've fallen and I can't find my dick!_ would be a bit more appropriate, don't you think?"

Dean throws a crust at him. "Shut up, ass," he says. "_You're_ meant to be the one who enjoys all that college humour crap."

Sam pauses a little before offering a retort to that one, and thinks maybe that little interval of silence is what puts Dean in a pissy mood for the rest of the afternoon. That, or that particular Californian light that over-saturates all the colours in the yard, soaking into Dean's skin despite the grubby layer of pollution that masks the true beach-blue of the sky.

Or maybe the sun just makes him sleepy. When Sam comes back outside later in the afternoon after he's been scouring Jenny's somewhat twee collection of Wicca books, Dean's half-way up the path toward the house already, pressing the back of his wrist into his eyes before running the hand over his face, fingers framing the gentler line of his jaw briefly before slipping down his neck and away. Dean's skin's disarmingly smooth without hide nor hair of a five o'clock shadow.

"I think I'm gonna go out," Dean says.

"Are you sure? I don't think--"

"_Sam_. I'm a girl, not a freaking invalid."

"But what if--"

"Dude. We know what did it. There's nothing after us. It'll be _fine_."

"I know, it's just--" Sam's mouth twists, and dammit, he almost wishes Dean could look _entirely_ different, a little shorter, bigger tits and skinnier limbs or _something_; anything but just the little bit _wrong_ he looks now.

"This better not be some kind of protective brotherly shit, because dude," Dean pushes up his sleeves a little further. "Don't think I can't still kick your ass."

Sam laughs a little, and that seems to be the response Dean was waiting for because he smirks and moves past Sam and into the house. The sky's darkening into twilight, and when Dean flicks on a light it casts Sam's shadow out ahead of him onto the lawn, black amidst the gold.

"Besides," Dean calls from inside, over the sound of running water. "Jenny told me about this café, The Planet. It sounds pretty cool."

Sam turns and follows Dean into the kitchen. He frowns a little, remembering scoping the neighborhood while he drove the car back a couple of days ago. "Isn't that a lesbian café?"

Dean doesn't look up from where he's rinsing his dishes. "And?"

"You're not going to hustle, are you?"

Dean lifts his head, expression unreadable. "And what if I am?"

"Nothing, I just--"

Dean smirks. "Nah," he says. "Doesn't seem like a pool joint. Chicks, you know?"

"Uh, Dean, you _are_ a--"

"Besides, I just need to get _out_, man. I'm not like you, I can't just sit around reading books and jerking off-- or…" He waves a somewhat crude gesture. "…The day away."

"Jilling off," Sam helpfully provides.

"What?"

"Jilling off. As opposed to jacking off. Girl equivalent. And I don't spend all day jerking off."

Dean gives him another look, his _Dude, just what **did** you learn at college?_ look, still reassuringly recognisable. "Yeah, but I do. C'mon, give a guy a break."

Sam hadn't realised Dean'd been waiting for his permission until then. Or not _permission_ per se, because if Sam's sure of anything it's that Dean would indeed lay the smackdown for even mentioning that particular P-word in that context. But waiting for Sam's acquiescence.

Sam shrugs. "Do you mind if I stay here?"

"Dude, where did I go wrong with you, seriously?"

"Dean, it's a _lesbian_ café."

The _duh_ look. "Ex_act_ly."

Not that Sam doesn't have a deep appreciation for lesbians, but so does _Dean_, and well, Dean's kinda _female_ right now, so…

"I'm good. I'll stay here. Might call in some contacts on that pendant. Bobby might have something in his library."

"Your loss, man." Dean's mouth hasn't changed all that much, still looks the same curled up in that crooked grin. Sam figures that's probably a good thing.

*

Lesbians, Dean decides, are _awesome_. Not all that much different from picking up chicks when he had a dick, but somehow (and if you'd told him this even a week ago he would have not thought it possible) his pick up lines work _better_ when he's a girl.

Or maybe it's not the lines. Maybe it's his (admittedly irresistible) body. Because he's barely got a line out at least twice tonight before some chick's put her fingers in his hair and licked at his mouth. It _is_ a good body, hell, it's even new enough to him that _he_ gets a little turned on just looking at it. Not that he'd ever admit that out loud, especially to Sam.

And whoever'd said that dykes were all butch and manly was so very, very wrong; in fact Dean would have to go with the local dialect on this one and classify the blonde whose ass is currently in his hands as she's grinding against his thigh as positively _bodacious_. She's wearing this flowy kind of skirt, already hitched-up mid-thigh by the spread of her legs on either side of Dean's hips, and it doesn't put up much resistance as Dean slides his hand in there too, calluses catching on the fine skin of her inner thigh before he presses the pads of his fingers against her slightly-damp panties. And then can't move his hand much at all as she presses down, trapping it between her body and his hip. Her hand shoves under his shirt and her fingers grab a nipple and _fuck_, he could _so_ get used to this whole lesbian thing.

"Café's closing," she says later, when Dean's not entirely sure he'll _ever_ be able to get the smell of girlsex out of the upholstery, and not entirely sure that he'll ever want to. The blonde's still flushed and a little sweaty, re-adjusting her bra and pulling her blouse down over it. She puffs her bangs out of her eyes, looks away from the half-fogged window and back at Dean. "You wanna… You wanna come back to my place?"

Dean stops the slow re-buttoning of his fly. Slow, because he thinks he might quite possibly have RSI. Really need to do some training on that one, build up his strength and stamina. There're still little shocks of weakness slipping jaggedly through his limbs from his belly, though, so maybe there's more to recovery time for girls than he'd previously thought.

"You know," the girl says. "You could stay the night…" She leans forward again, and his hands automatically go out to curve around her breasts, heavy and warm against his palm. She nuzzles his nose with hers. Her mouth still kinda glistens around the edges, smells more like sex than the upholstery does. "I could make you breakfast…"

Dean thumbs at her nipples, heavy heat already starting again between his legs. He focuses on the question, makes his brain work. It's surprisingly easy, if still a little languid. Sam. Probably sitting up _waiting_ for him, the hyper-nervous freak, probably not making much use of that _incredibly_ comfortable day bed, lying there reading or angsting or jerking off.

"Nah," Dean says finally, tipping his chin forward to kiss her again, slow and sweet and so fucking _wet_, and that just about sums it up, doesn't it? "Gotta get home. My brother…"

He's not quite sure what's happened for a moment, his skin's suddenly cold, hands suddenly empty. The girl's pulling her boots on and running her fingers through her hair and her lips are pursed tightly as she's saying, "Right, fine. I get it." And then the door's slamming after her.

Dean blinks.

Sammy's asleep and drooling on top of the covers, and neither of his freak-ass large hands are in his pants so there goes Dean's plans of taunting him for a week about jerking off thinking of lesbians. He wakes up when Dean tries to ease the covers out from under him, makes this weird snorting noise that's so endearing that Dean decides to leave it by the wayside instead of repeating it back to him for the next seventy-two hours.

"Dean?" Sam slurs, screwing his eyes up and blinking hard even though Dean hasn't turned on a light, just finding his way 'round the garden house by the oily glow of the city reflected back down by the smog.

"Yeah, buddy," Dean whispers, feeling free to use a little more force to jerk the covers from under Sam now that the risk of him stirring is null and void. "You totally waited up for me, didn't you? You suck, dude, I told you it was fine."

"You got laid," Sam says, non-sequitur much, only his face is pretty close to Dean's neck as Dean helps him maneuver those freak-ass long, sleep-sloppy limbs under the blankets, and Sam's making these half-snuffling noises. His tone's half sleep-drunk, half like Dean's just kicked his puppy without warning, and Dean draws back a little to look into Sam's face. It's too dark, though, and the glimmer of Sam's eyes too-quickly extinguished as he drops almost immediately back to sleep.

Dean stands up. His legs are still feeling a bit weak. "No shit," he says.

*

So it turns out The Planet has these hook up nights, they call them tea parties or some shit like that but Dean's not fooled, he knows a room full of girls looking to get laid when he see's 'em, and damned if he's not entirely willing to oblige. Sam's still pissed at Jenny, but she doesn't seem to be taking to Dean's wry camaraderie either, gathering from the weirdass way she drives him all the way there without speaking a word into his ten-minute accolade to the clitoris then barely bring the car to a stop before kicking him to the curb.

So, walking home tonight. Or finding another bed to sleep in which, if a week's worth of tiptoeing into the garden house before sunrise after turning down woman-after-woman's offers of breakfast is anything to go by, shouldn't be too hard.

Except he's _in_, he's _totally_ in with this redhead leaning against the bar, all spaghetti strap top and skirt that spins out when she swings 'round and white teeth biting into her red mouth, only she's gone when he turns 'round from signaling the bartender. Or, not gone. Just obscured. He can still see her hand; short, dark-red nails (and that's become _so_ much hotter than manicured talons in, oh, the last week-or-so) sliding over the shoulder of the narrow, angular back in front of him.

The girl glances over her shoulder, mouth clever and cocky as she smirks at him. "Sorry, darlin," she says, and licks at the redhead's knuckles. There's a giggle from somewhere out of Dean's sight. "Mind if I cut in?"

"As a matter of fact--"

She turns back 'round again before he can get any more out than that, and Dean can see knobs of her spine at the top of her back when she slouches a little, tilts her head down to better reach her hookup. _Dean's_ hookup.

"As a matter of fact, I _do_." He steps 'round, pivots on one foot. The redhead, bless her, doesn't tense up or pull away when Dean slides his hands around her waist, his knuckles brushing against the other chick's belt buckle, but she doesn't drop her arms from the other chick's shoulders, either.

The other chick is even more irritating from the front than she was from the back, dark hair short and tousled up with product, wifebeater rumpled over her flat belly but perked up a little by her breasts, black leather pants taut across her angular hips, shit-kicker boots. She seems more amused the pissed off when Dean's roaming gaze finally makes it back to her face, eyes narrowed and tongue sliding against the blade-edge of her teeth.

She steps forward loosely and abruptly the redhead's sandwiched between them, her hair soft at Dean's face, buttocks pressed against his upper thighs. If he looks over her shoulder he can see her breasts pressed up against the other girl's, all pushed up and making Dean's fingers itch. He flattens his hands, strokes upwards a bit, and the redhead straightens her arms a little, sets her hands firmer behind the other girl's neck before leaning a little, arching her back, giving Dean easier access whilst simultaneously pressing against them both a little harder.

"Care to take this outside?" The other chick's mouth is still open a little, still smirking at him, and her eyes aren't half-lidded or sultry like any of the girls Dean's picked up since he lost his dick. This time it's more of a _challenge_, as the girl slides her hands 'round under the redhead's arms, setting her grip on the redhead's bare shoulder blades. Dean's nipples scrape against the backs of her hands.

"Yeah," he says, mouth against the redhead's neck, voice rough. "Sure, why not?"

*

He's woken by the soft sense of movement, felt by proxy through the soft body pressed against him. Dean opens his eyes and looks over to see the dark-haired chick easing out of the bed and pulling her white briefs up over her angular hips. She turns as she looks for her pants, catching Dean's eye and not breaking contact as she finds and yanks her wifebeater over her head, wicked smile growing as she skins the leather up over her lean thighs, works the buttons of the fly without even glancing down. The curl of her lip makes Dean's knuckles clench into fists; the artful tousle of her bed-hair makes his fingers twitch at the remembrance of the redhead's fingers clenched in it, face hidden between her trembling thighs.

She lifts a hand taps the edge of her finger to her forehead in a sardonic salute. "It's Shane, by the way," she says, with more voice than a whisper but still low and smooth, and then she's out the door, boots in hand, before the redhead clinging to Dean's side has finished stirring.

"Baby," she mutters as Dean hears the door catch, and grips a soft, warm hand in the newly-sensitive area where Dean's ribcage curves down before flaring out into hip. A cold foot wriggles its way between his calves, chin digs into his collarbone, and he's quite unmistakably being _snuggled_.

Swearing aloud would no doubt result in wakefulness and offers of breakfast, so he settles for doing it just in his head.

*

"So you had a threesome with this woman," Sam says again, slow and wary. "And some other woman. And now--?"

"And now it's like she's stalking me or something, dude, every time I turn around she's _there_, chatting up whoever I'm hitting on, stealing all my hook ups. _Man,_ it's just--"

"So you had a threesome," Sam says. "A lesbian threesome. With these women."

"Fuck, Sam, _yes_, alright, I had a threesome, and now--"

"So why're you complaining again?"

Dean pauses for a moment to grind his teeth. "Alright, okay, so it wasn't that the sex was _bad_, I mean it was pretty awesome, she could do this thing with her thumb and her tongue that just--dude, if I'd known _that_ trick ten years ago my teenage years would have been a _whole_ lot more interesting--Dude, _what?_"

Sam's got a pained look on his face, head tilted slightly away and eyes narrowed as if wincing. "Could you--could you _not_? I mean, I don't really want to hear about--"

"The hell? Sam, since you were _twelve_ and realized that girls weren't actually just a variety of things we _hunted_ you've been grilling me for every detail of my sex life, what gives--?"

The pained look doesn't go away. "This is different, dude, this is… you're my… you're my _sister_."

Dean gets the sudden urge to punch Sam, and gives in to it just on principle.

"Ow, _Jesus_ Dean, what the hell--?"

"I'm your fucking _brother_, dipshit, just because I've got different parts doesn't mean that--" He breaks off, hissing a breath out through his teeth, pacing restlessly for a moment, using the adrenaline surge through his muscles to rub too roughly at his smarting knuckles. "Aw, hell."

"You might be having fun running around fucking every girl in the neighborhood," Sam's voice is thick, muffled from where he's still got his hand clamped over his cheek and nose, with an edge of teenaged sulkiness. "But it's weird, Dean, it's not _right_."

The edge of Dean's mouth curls a little in reluctant admission; and also in acknowledgement of the fact that when he wakes up these days sometime mid-afternoon, Sam's already surrounded by piles of open books, fingers massaging absentmindedly at his temples.

Dean looks at Sam for a long moment, Sam looks back. "I thought you _liked_ girls," Dean says, aiming for slightly-hurt and bewildered, but not able to keep the edge of devious humour out of his voice.

"I do." Sam rolls his eyes. "But--" Dean reaches for the hem of his own tee-shirt and pulls it up to his chin, keeping his expression blank and eyes set on Sam's face. Sam curses. "--Jesus, Dean, do you have to be such a--? Ah Christ, I don't wanna see that…" But he doesn't look away, and Dean counts down, _4…3…2…_ before dragging the hem back down to his waist.

"There," he says at length, smiling brightly at Sam's somewhat sullen expression. "That better?"

Sam gives him a look that could wither a harvest. "No."

*

Jenny knocks on the door of the garden house late in the afternoon, and Sam exchanges a glance with Dean, lying on the day bed with the laptop resting on his chest, before laying his book down the getting up to crack it open.

"My neighbors," she says. "They're having a dinner party tonight, and, uh… Did you want to come?"

Sam backs into the room, wordlessly inviting Jenny in after him, stopping when he feels the bed at his calves and glancing down at Dean again. Dean raises an eyebrow, wordless question. Not _anti-_ the idea, then, but all Sam's seen of the neighbors is the glowing of the pool through the gaps in the fence late at night, and the expensive car backing out of the garage every morning.

"Sure," Dean says, shutting the laptop as Jenny's wary steps bring her close enough to be able to see the screen. He tilts his head back, quirks her a smile. "We need to bring anything?"

She smiles a little in return, and Sam's still pissed at her but at least she's _trying_. She shakes her head. "Nope. I'm bringing _you_ guys, so…"

Dean gives a brief laugh. "Like that then, is it?"

Her smile gets a little stronger. "Yeah. You can, uh… You can borrow something to wear, if you'd like…"

Dean's expression freezes, then shuts down; almost imperceptible except that Sam fucking _knows_ his brother, still knows him despite everything.

"Thanks," Dean says, tone still polite but no longer as warm. Jenny's smile doesn't waver though, like she hasn't even noticed. "But I think I can dig something up."

"Okay," she says, and looks to Sam, who musters a smile in response. "Well, see you at eight."

"Eight," Sam says. "Right, see you then."

Dean's already sitting up and reaching for the car keys as Jenny's closing the door behind her.

"You know, we don't have to--" Sam just watches as Dean shoves the keys in his pocket, shrugs on a shirt over his tee-shirt.

"Sure we do," Dean says, easy. "Besides, there's nothing here, Sam." He gestures impatiently at the books and printouts spread around the room. "This is all bullshit.

There's no point in shutting yourself up and going over the same old crap any more. Might as well get used to it." He doesn't quite _slam_ the door, but his parting words makes it feel like he has. Sam can hear the rumble of the Impala's engine all the way from the garage, then pealing out down the street.

*

By the time eight o'clock comes 'round and Dean still hasn't come back, any guilty melancholia Sam may have been indulging in with regards to his brother has been well and truly washed away by irritation. The street's dark outside Jenny's house, dim-lit by the orange streetlights, and she hooks her elbow into his after locking the door behind them.

"Should we wait for your sister?" she asks, and Sam doesn't correct her -- probably best not to, if they're going to be spending the rest of the evening in company.

Sam shakes his head. "If he's coming, he's coming, but there's no point in waiting around."

It's not entirely surprising that Sam's the only guy there, but there's a degree of relief in the fact that there isn't all that many of them, just a small handful of women, enough to fit around a dinner table. He almost feels underdressed in iron-free trousers and dress shirt, but they're all friendly enough that that concern slips by the wayside quick enough. They've barely got through the introductions when the doorbell rings and Tina -- the other half of Bette, the neighbors and hosts in question -- comes back into the sitting room with Dean.

Dean, still with biker boots and jeans but jeans that _fit_, and a shirt that Sam's never seen before but then that kinda makes sense, because it's deliberately ripped a little down the front, torn edges shaping round the edges of Dean's breasts, black and sleeveless and showing of the sleek muscle of Dean's biceps. His hair's the way it is when he pulls at it while it's drying, and is that… is that _lip gloss?_

"Hi," Dean says to the room in general, smirk getting a bit deeper as he takes in Sam's speechless stare. "Sorry I'm late. I'm Dean. Sam's sister."

Dean without a dick is just as sleazy as Dean _with_ a dick, Sam realizes as Dean makes the rounds of the women whose attention is now focused solely on him, Dean's hand resting lightly on forearms, his mouth brushing lightly against cheeks. Only now… Now it's kinda… kinda hot.

"_Dean_," Tina says, sounding delighted. "Not unlike our _Shane_. Did you choose it yourself?"

A tall, tomboyish girl Sam'd been introduced to earlier wanders in from the kitchen where Bette had retreated to, leaning against the doorframe and smiling languidly. Dean's smile stills, then curls in an entirely different way before he tears his eyes from Shane and looks back to Tina. "Naw," he says, playing it up. "I'm all real. Just what my Momma gave me." He spreads his arms out a little, on display.

Tina smiles, glances between Sam and Dean briefly. "Well," she says. "I can see that good genes run in the family."

*

Bette and Tina take the head and foot of the table and Dean and Sam are side-by-side at the middle; Shane's placing approximately opposite Dean allows for what promises to be an evening of staring competitions, if the first course is anything to go by.

"So, Sam. Dean," Bette says as Tina sets the last of the main course dishes around. "What brings you to Los Angeles?"

Sam smiles, glancing briefly at Dean before writing him off as a lost cause. Shane's smirking on the other side of the table, chewing with her mouth open, and Dean is utterly rapt.

"Just visiting," Sam says. "Jenny and I were at college together." He glances to Jenny, and she smiles automatically. Leaving him to it, then. Also probably for the best.

"What were you studying?"

"Pre-law," he says. "Some art history. Dabbling, you know."

"Well isn't that a coincidence!" Tina exclaims as she sits back down. "Bette here's an art dealer."

"Really? I dated an art dealer, once." Because modifying the truth slightly is always a better bet than re-creating reality entirely.

"The thirty-million-dollar question, though," says another woman, leaning forward over her plate, knife and fork poised mid-air. Alice, he recalls. "What we _really_ want to know--was this art dealer male or female?"

Sam laughs a little. "Female," he says. "Definitely female."

"Straight as a line, then?"

Sam pauses for a moment, as if considering the question. "Well, I did spend four years at college…"

The gratifying laughter around the table masks the sound of Dean's abrupt choking, and Sam allows himself a small, victorious smile for that. Now they're almost, _almost_ even from Dean _flashing_ Sam his goddamn _tits_.

"Say no more," Alice says, then, as if confessing something to Sam alone, "women!" She laughs.

"So," Tina says. "You come from an… an educated family? Dean, did you go to college?"

"Not really my thing," Dean says without pausing a beat, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork and drawing it off again with his teeth.

"And your parents?"

Sam glances to Dean again, but he's staring at his plate. "Our mother died when we were kids," Sam says.

"Oh, that's terrible," Tina says, exchanging a look with Bette for a moment. "Did she… Was she…?"

"There was an electrical fire," Sam says. "Anyway, our Dad… He uh, he studied anthropology before he settled down with my Mom, traveled a bit… So we went back on the road after she died, kinda grew up all over the place."

"All over the States?" Bette sounds a little puzzled. "Anthropology?"

"And all over the world. You know, remote tribes in Asia, Africa, that kind of thing." Dean's _finally_ contributing to the conversation, and Sam's finally remembering why he doesn't like it when Dean does.

"Oh," Tina says. "That sounds _wonderful_! I'm sure you have some great stories."

Sam clears his throat. "We uh… We kinda came back to the country so I could finish school and go to college, you know? It wasn't really my thing."

Tina nods, but she's looking at Bette again. They both smile.

"Would you ladies excuse me for a moment?" Shane stands, smiling around the table and dropping her napkin onto her chair. She strolls out of the room, toward the back yard.

"Um," Dean says, laying his knife and fork down beside his plate. "Bathroom?" he asks Tina.

"Guest bathroom back behind you, first door to the right off the front hall."

"Thanks," Dean grins, then stands and walks in entirely the opposite direction.

Sam clears his throat awkwardly, and Bette coughs into her own napkin in a way that sounds not entirely unlike laughter.

They eat in silence for ten minutes and then Dean's back, high flush on his cheekbones and jaw clenched. "I think it's time we got going, Sammy," he says, and Sam raises an eyebrow, but stands without complaint.

"I'm sorry," he says to Tina as she sees them to the door, Dean already waiting at the end of the path, leaving Sam to take care of the burdens of social etiquette. "Dean's--"

Tina laughs. "It's okay," she says. "I know Shane. Don't worry about it." She pats his arm. "Don't be a stranger, okay?"

"Well," Sam says as they walk through the garage to Jenny's back yard, heading toward the garden house. "That was weird."

"I don't want to talk about it," Dean says.

*

Next time Dean sees her it's morning, albeit late morning, hazy light filtered by his sunglasses as he walks to the corner store to buy Sam some goddamn Twizzlers.

"Well hello there, sugar," Shane says, and Dean stops, looks. She's leaning against the wall of the store, near some carts displaying fresh fruit to the sidewalk. Usual slouch-jeans and gray tee-shirt, thumbs hooked in her belt and hair without product, shaggy and stupid like Sam's, flopping over her forehead and ears. He takes a couple of steps toward her and she raises an eyebrow, lifts one booted foot to press it to the wall behind her. "Gonna try and chat me up again?"

Dean can't stop the scowl he can feel on his face, and before he knows it he's stalked forward, not sure what he's going to do or say but _fuck_, if this chick doesn't make him _crazy_…

She winds her fingers in his hair, tugs a little at his scalp. "You got something to say?" She says softly, still all challenge, and then Dean's not looking at her mouth, he's biting it, his lips tingling as they're crushed between his teeth and hers, forcing his tongue forward only to find hers coming out to meet it, hard press and determined lick.

She laughs, low and husky without breaking contact and he huffs out a half-growl, pushing forward harder, even as she tilts her head a little to lick deeper. Her hand slides from his hair, to neck and shoulder, then to the front of his tee-shirt and before he knows it she's swung him around with her grip on it to slam his back against the wall. She shoves a knee between his thighs and braces one hand on the wall by his shoulder, the other staying on his chest but sliding down, cupping a breast and thumbing the nipple into a peak, pressing it between her thumb and the base knuckle of her forefinger.

"You wanna go someplace?" she breathes against Dean's neck, pushing up with her knee and leaning in with her belly and pulling out with her hand all at the same time and Dean nods fervently, feeling his body go liquid, blood pumping downward and then outward again, making him tingle to the tips of his goddamn fingers.

*

She doesn't touch him as she leads the way and Dean thinks it might possibly take them twice as long if she was. As it is, by the time she hustles him the restroom cubicle of a nearby café the friction of the seam of his goddamn jeans is enough to make his knees weak; not putting up much of a resistance as Shane puts her hands on his shoulders and shoves him down onto the closed toilet seat.

She crouches in front of him, grinning up wickedly as her fingers rapidly unbuckle his belt and pulls the fly of his jeans open, dragging denim down past Dean's knees, enough that she can shove his feet back and drag his hips forward, pulling his knees apart to bracket her shoulders.

Dean's breath is quick and loud and the cubicle smells like sex already, plastic cover warming under his ass a bit too-slippery under the heels of his palms where he's bracing them behind him, so he slaps one hand against the close wall of the cubicle and puts the other one in Shane's hair. She growls a little, breath hot and teeth slick against his inner thigh, so fucking _close, **fuck**_, and tosses her head so he drops the hand to her shoulder instead and she leans forward.

His legs are splayed and he's fucking turned on enough that he's already swollen open like a goddamn flower or some other useless metaphor he's usually too busy fucking to think of, and she just sticks out her tongue and _licks_, not dipping in, just sliding up already-wet flesh to press the tip against his clit, and her tongue's almost _cold_ in comparison to the heat pulsing out from there, the touch sending a surge of it back up to his belly.

She laughs a little and he realizes he's groaned, bites back another as she brings a hand up, the other still reaching at shoulder-height to dig into and push back against his thigh. Her fingers press experimentally against Dean's flesh, then firmer, stroking around lips then between them, from clit to cunt, separating his flesh even as it cleaves to her. Another long stroke, her chin grinding down briefly above his clit and making his hips jerk, and then she slides two long fingers into him, easy and deep, dipping her head again to breath out hard then tongue, coming up to lap against his clit in a steady rhythm.

Dean's fingers are numb, digging into her shoulder and she looks up at him, freeing the hand on his knee to slide cool and easy up under his tee-shirt, fingers skating the underside of his breast before scraping fingernails gently toward the center of a hard nipple. The cubicle blurs and shifts and smears in Dean's vision and he swears, bucks; Shane presses him back down with the fingers inside him, scissoring, pushing in, stroking steady circles. She twists them, then, making his legs spread wider, and presses the pad of her thumb firm down against his clit before nudging it away with her tongue again.

"Fuck," Dean says shakily, and his boot heels click against porcelain tile until his feet arch up to rest on toe-tip, trembling tension-ache starting in ankles, winding up through his knees and thighs, buttocks and belly "_Fuck…_"

She grips a nipple between her knuckles, pulls and _twists_ just as she flicks the edge of her thumbnail against his clit, and as if she's touched a live wire it surges through Dean like a fucking electrical charge. She leans back as he rides through it, moving her hand so he's grinding into the heel of her palm and flexing her fingers even as he clamps down around them and then Jesus _fuck_, it's quite likely that his spine is now the consistency of a damp sponge, and the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floor is Shane's hands wrapped 'round his hips.

"You still with me?" she asks, low and amused, and Dean's not sure he's ready to answer just yet.

And the soft weave of his tee-shirt against his breasts is too-much-stimulation right now, so when she spiders her fingers to press into the crease of his thigh and flicks her tongue insistently against his clit again, he stutters out something on a harsh breath that might have begun life as a curse.

She hums a little, and he can _feel_ her smirking in the shift of her cheek against his thigh, then his hips are shuddering involuntarily as she just fucking _laps_ at him, tongue dipping in cunt then sliding up, blessedly brief against his clit before tilting down and starting again, sending shocks sparking out, twitching along his limbs, making his fingers and toes jerk.

And then her hands slide up, tracing the curve of his hip, waist, sliding in around his ribs. Her wrists push up the hem of his shirt and she holds a breast in each hand. Her mouth is slick, musky, her tongue working his mouth like it did his cunt and Dean moans into it, sliding his ass back to settle more securely on the seat as she rises from a crouch to settle astride Dean's thigh.

The denim is rough against his bare skin, and he can feel how hot she is even through the tough layer of fabric, rocking her hips a little against him. Her thumbs stroke the smooth skin of his breasts, mouth tacky against the edge of his jaw.

"That was…" He breathes. Swallows, tries again. Apparently she's rendered him utterly helpless with little more than her mouth. He puffs out a weak laugh. "Probably the closest I've ever come to being fucked by a guy." Which makes no sense, with her delicate hands and narrow shoulders, not to mention goddamn _breasts_, but it kinda does, too. If he doesn't think about it too much. And maybe that's more what it's about.

Her teeth scrape his throat for a moment before she pulls back, and one thumb presses his now-smooth nipple, _digs_ in while her other hand flicks open her fly. "That so?" she says, eyes dark and mouth dark and open, only the hint of a smile, features stained languid by arousal. She grabs Dean's wrist from where his hand's resting on her hip, tenses her thighs and lifts up a little to shove his hand into her pants. "Feel like a man to you?"

She's _hot_, so goddamn hot, all over; and liquid between Dean's fingers and he curls them obligingly as she tightens her grip and pushes it further. His middle fingers slide into her cunt, pinky and index stroke through the hair and she tilts her hips forward as he angles his hand up, her clit a sharp point amidst the slick and smooth in the heel of his palm. She bears down, trapping his hand between her body and his thigh, hard seam of her jeans digging into the back of his hand through the damp cling of her briefs.

She lets out a sound that sounds mid-way between a moan and a laugh, open-mouthed, and releases Dean's wrist to pull her shirt over her head before gripping Dean's hair and hauling him forward. Braless, her breasts are small and perfectly fucking weighted, pale and translucent in the bottom curve, the tops arcing and tipping her pink nipples upward. He wraps his free arm around her lower back, pulling forward and curving her back inward, shifting the angle of her hips to press down harder and bringing her breast to his mouth.

The nipple's satin-smooth, skin- and sweat-taste, and the tip of it heavy and reluctant to budge when he flicks it with his tongue. He sucks and teeth-scrapes, letting the cool air kiss over it with her movement as he shifts his attention to the other. When she comes she twists her fingers in his hair 'til his eyes water, pulling his head back as she rides her hips against him, forcing his jaw open, neck arched. Her nipple is cool-wet, scraping against the sensitive skin of his throat in her final, jerky movements, and _fuck_, if he's not totally ready to go again.

Being a lesbian, Dean decides, is _awesome_.

*

"Bitch," Sam says as Dean walks through the door, "where the hell are my Twizzlers?"

Dean stops mid-stride, digs in his hip pockets, then the back ones, then attempting rather pitifully to pretend he didn't forget. "Ass," he says. "Get your own goddamn Twizzlers." Then proceeds to flop face-down onto the day bed.

Sam scowls and draws his feet up, nudging Dean a little spitefully with his knee but not forceful enough to tip him off the edge. "Two _hours_, dude," Sam says, and he knows he's whining but he also knows just what buttons Dean has available for pushing when it comes to Sam. "Two _hours_ to go to the corner store and back. If you'd _told_ me you would have been taking two hours to go and get _absolutely no Twizzlers whatsoever_ I _would_ have got my own goddamn Twizzlers."

Dean groans, shifting his head to snuffle into the rumpled-up blankets under his face. "Whatever, man."

Sam pauses, eyes narrowing. "You totally had sex," he says at length. "You totally just had sex right now. At the _corner store?_"

"No," Dean sounds indignant, if still muffled. A pause. "At that café. The pancake one. In the bathroom."

"You had sex in an IHOP bathroom?"

"_No,_" Dean sighs, rolls over, lifting his arms up and over his head. His tee-shirt sleeves are short enough the Sam can see the hair in his armpits curling shortly against the more delicate skin there. "IHOP, dude, look at where we _are_." He waves one hand vaguely, not bothering to even lift it from where it hangs off the edge of the bed. "That little boho café, _Buttery_ something."

Sam shakes his head.

"Are you judging me because I'm a woman?" Dean sounds more bored than infuriated.

Sam huffs out a breath in disbelief, rolls his eyes. "Jesus, Dean, _no_; I'm just reflecting on the fact that you can get women into bed quicker with a pussy than you could with your dick."

Dean bothers to lift his hand this time, to deliver Sam a one-fingered salute. "Not bed, dude, I told you: bathroom." His eyes have slid closed and he smiles, small and private, tipping his head back like the metaphorical cat who'd got the metaphorical cream. Metaphorically speaking.

"Anyway dude," Sam says, clicking the laptop closed and drawing his leg up from where Dean's half-lying on it, setting his feet on the floor. "Bobby called back. Thinks he might have something."

Dean cracks one eye open. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Either that or he just wants to see for his own eyes, the mighty Dean Winchester-- Ow, _fuck_, that _hurt_, you fucker." Sam stands, rubbing at the tender flesh above his knee that Dean's boot heel had dug into. He stands by the bed for a moment, watching Dean sprawling, eyes closed. "So we'll head off before the end of the week."

Dean doesn't open his eyes.

"Dean?"

"Sleeping now," Dean says, sing-song, still not opening his eyes, beatific smile not slipping.

Sam sighs. "I'll just go and get some Twizzlers, then," he says.

"Can you pick me up some M&amp;Ms?"

"_Sleeping now_," Sam parrots, and throws a cushion directly at Dean's head before bolting out the door.

*

It's three days later that Dean's holding the front door of The Planet open for the brunette he's just blown in the Impala, when the girl in question freezes only a couple of steps inside, then makes a beeline for the bar. Dean opens his mouth and closes it without speaking; watching as she marches without a backward glance to where Shane's slouching against the bar, hips canted forward. The sound of ambient conversation barely pauses at the sound of a slap, and Dean ducks back outside as the brunette starts shouting.

He leans against the wall by the door, counts down, _5… 4… 3… 2…_ The door to the café swings open and Shane's boot heels click solidly against the pavement.

"Hey," Dean says, and her head swings 'round. She grins, still stroking absently at her cheek as she strolls toward him, dropping her hand to hook fingers into the neck of his tee-shirt when she gets close enough. He kicks his knee up, pressing the sole of his boot against the wall behind him, the inside of his knee brushing her outer thigh. "Want me to make it better?" he asks, dipping his head forward a little to indicate her slightly flushed cheek.

She bites the tip of her tongue between her teeth, as if considering, then yanks the neck of his shirt away from his throat, peers down into the gap. Grins. "Sure," she says, then, "_Awesome_, muscle car!" when she sees his baby.

Her shoulders seem bizarrely narrow, legs stick-thin against the wide bench seat when Dean's used to looking over to see Sam's giant-ass limbs taking up more room than should be allowed. Shane slouches a little, stroking the leather and laughing, eyes half-lidded as he guns the engine. "Awesome," she says again, and slides over to bite his neck.

He parks the car back in Jenny's garage then Shane leads him down the narrow path between Tina and Bette's house and the fence dividing it from Jenny's place, tipping a potted plant on its side to pick up the key from beneath it, unlocking the gate to their yard and holding it open for him.

"It's cool," she says as she unbuttons her shirt, shimmies out of her jeans, pale skin lit electric blue by the light of the pool. "They're friends. I do this all the time." The light makes her nipples look black, and the line her pubic hair's been trimmed into wants Dean to follow it down.

Shane's body arcs perfectly for an instant, and then she's in the water, surfacing to flick her hair off her face with a quick head-toss. Dean topples in after her. His own body looks strange through the gently-moving water, skin tone and shapes distorted, the alien-ness and simultaneous familiarity of it all hitting him like a sucker-punch again, like it did the first time.

Then Shane's fingers are against his waist and she's gliding him backwards, pressing his back against the wall of the pool, the brick lip slotting into the curve of his neck beneath the base of his skull. Her arms come up to brace behind him and her mouth presses against his, cold-wet lips and warm tongue, and Dean presses his head back as far as he can and bites.

She lifts a leg, hooks a foot around above his ass, knee folded around his hip and he slides his fingers down her belly and between her legs, the wet there slicker than the cooler water slowly rocking them.

The sound of a door slamming on the patio barely registers until the sound of harsh breathing makes Dean open his eyes, look up. Sam's standing mid-way between the house and the pool; his hair wild, shirt half-buttoned. His hoodie's slung over one forearm, his other hand holding his pants up and fly together. "Dean?" he says, taking a couple more steps forward and peering, still breathing hard.

Dean brings both hands up to Shane's shoulders, pushing slightly. She looses her grip on the brick behind him and glides back with a couple of easy strokes.

"Sammy," Dean says, his voice still low and a little rough, echoing strangely across the surface of the water. He swims to the edge of the pool nearest Sam. "What's going on?"

"I--" Sam makes a feint movement, the beginnings of a familiar anxious gesture, running a hand through his hair, aborted due to the need for Sam's pants not to fall down. Dean vaults up out of the pool.

"Sam, _what_?"

Sam's eyes are wide, and his brow furrows a bit as he looks down Dean's naked body and up again. He turns his head, back to the house, to the pool, to the fence separating the space from Jenny's yard. "This is--I gotta go," he says, and starts walking toward the fence, not looking at Dean again.

"Wait, Sammy, just--" Dean curses, near-jogs after him, Sam's freakishly long legs eating up the paving with determined strides. He stops when Dean grips his sleeve, turns back around, eyes staring blindly. Sam's shaking a little, and Dean can smell the sharp tannin of red wine on the breath he's still puffing out. "At least do up your pants before you jump the goddamn fence, idiot," Dean says, dropping his hands to at least do up the top button if Sam's too drunk to do it himself, and abruptly Sam's shoving him away, making his bare feet scrape against the grain of the brick.

"Alright," Dean says. "Jesus, don't get your fucking panties in a knot!" And then Sam's dropped his hoodie and he's vaulting over the fence before Dean can blink, rapid footsteps getting mildly fainter before the slam and glass-rattle of the garden house door.

Dean turns around. Shane's leaning her chin against her folded forearms, resting on the edge of the pool. She raises an eyebrow. "My brother," Dean sighs, giving a half-shrug and rolling his eyes. "Pick this up later?"

She drops her arms, leans back and pushes off against the wall, gliding backwards and kicking a few strokes further. "Sure," she says, and Dean starts looking for his clothes, struggling to pull them over his wet skin. His tee-shirt's soaked, clinging to his skin, the runoff from his hair soaking it sopping at the back. He pulls Sam's hoodie on over the top almost as an afterthought, then hauls himself up and over the fence.

Sam's buttoned his shirt up and his jeans are belted and buckled, but other than that not much of his demeanor has changed; he doesn't stop his pacing of the narrow space between the day bed and the unmade cot as Dean comes in, doesn't even look up.

Dean folds his arms over his chest. "Care to tell me what the hell _that_ was all about?" he says, no fucking bullshit, and Sam runs a hand through his hair, pulling at it and stopping finally to sit on the day bed. He props his elbows on his knees, digs the heels of hands into his eyes.

"They tried to have sex with me," Sam says, tone level.

"What?" _What?_ "Who--? Bette and _Tina?_"

Sam nods, still not looking up.

"At the same time?"

"_Yes_, at the same time!" Sam hisses, and looks at Dean finally, angrily, like it's the stupidest question Dean's ever asked him. "They…" he drops his head again, hands dropping to fidget between his knees. "They seduced me."

Dean feels laughter bubbling up through his sternum, represses it only for the sake of Sam's obvious distress. Not that he won't be making the most of this for a long, _long_ time to come; the glee of anticipation already making it hard to keep a straight face. "And this is a bad thing _why?_"

"_Dean_," Sam says, speaking slowly and looking Dean straight in the eye as if to convey the seriousness of his words. "They wanted me to _impregnate_ them."

"_At the same time?_"

"No, Jesus, _not_ at the same time. Just Tina. While Bette…" He makes a vague, not-quite-unidentifiable gesture, and huh. Dean's going to be making the most of _those_ mental images for a long, long time.

"Well they weren't asking you to pay child support, were they…?"

"Dean, that's not the goddamn point! They didn't _ask_ or even _tell_… It's a fucking _theft_. A violation of my genetic code. Of _our_ genetics, Dean!"

"Yeah, but--"

"Another kid running around with our blood, Dean. Winchester blood." Sam's looking straight at him, now, not fidgeting, mouth a firm line. Not puppy-dog eyes, but still freaking clutching at Dean's chest. And _oh_.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Sam breaks eye contact, looks down, away; anywhere but Dean.

Not that this is unfamiliar territory. Because as soon as Sam was old enough to think for himself, to question the whys and hows of Dad's decisions, he'd done just that.

It's just that Dean didn't realize 'til now what that means. That Sam would get this fucking upset over the thought of bringing one of them into the world, into _their_ world. And fuck, that Sam has the belief that no matter who raised the kid, the fact that it was _his_ would be enough to seal its fate.

That Sam's life is entirely fucking involuntary, and Dean wants to rail against that, punch something, maybe a few things and maybe more than once, but _fuck_. Was it even voluntary? For any of them? Still not in unfamiliar territory, but at least here he can rely on the habitual urge to shy away from it.

He sits down next to Sam. "You wanna get out of here?"

Sam nods, doesn't look up. "Yeah."

*

It's no big deal, a couple days earlier than planned but they've left places on shorter notice; even after over a week it still takes only the half-hour before dawn to get their shit together. They fold up the cot again and strip the dirty linen, message enough for Jenny without having to leave a note.

"Hey, uh," Dean says as Sam slides into the passenger seat. "You mind if we stop by The Planet on our way out?"

Sam looks at him, and Dean does this quick-glance thing a couple times before leaning forward to twist the ignition.

"Don't wanna just skip out without saying goodbye, you know?"

Sam rolls his eyes. Dean is so fucking _bad_ at lying. To him, anyhow. "You mean to get laid."

Dean scratches the hair at the base of his skull, then drops his hand to grip the stick. "Well, yeah, but--"

"Dean, it's okay. It's actually kinda reassuring to know you're still… Well, you."

"Yeah, well as if liking _sex_ is going to change. I lost my dick, man, not my brain."

Sam snorts briefly in amusement, staring out the passenger window as they cruise down the suburban streets. The light's getting brighter quicker, pale haze wreathing the over-saturated houses.

"Besides," Dean says. "I'll only be twenty minutes, tops. You can wait in the car if you like."

Sam snorts louder this time. "I take it back," he says. "The _real_ Dean would only need five minutes."

He can tell Dean's warring with himself whether to smack Sam now or later, and apparently later wins out as Dean's hesitation extends to parking the car in front of the café, glass front opened up to the morning light, door open and a few other early risers already getting their first caffeine hit of the day.

"I'll come in too," Sam says as Dean climbs out and slams the door. "Might as well see it before we leave it for good, huh?"

The tomboyish girl from the dinner party is hunched over a jumbo cup when they walk in, but up and abandons it to follow Dean toward the back without a word. Sam takes the stool next to hers, looks away from their retreating backs and toward the coffee machine. Before he can even say anything, the woman behind the counter's put a steaming cup in front of him.

"Cream?" she asks, voice low and smooth.

He smiles. "Thanks." He watches as she pours a brief stream of it in. "And thanks for the coffee."

She shrugs a little. "Looks like you need it." He can't quite identify her accent.

Sam's not sure whether to be insulted or not, but decides that it doesn't really matter because essentially, it's the truth.

"Your brother, on the other hand… appears to be running on somewhat more potent fuel."

Sam looks up at her, and she's staring right back. "My brother…?" he says, going for confused, testing the waters, and she nods.

"Shane told me about you and Dean."

"About--?"

"That you were staying with Jenny," she clarifies.

"Ah," Sam says, and it's becoming clearer, now. "Jenny. The pendant…?"

She dips her head a little in acknowledgement. "I gave it to her."

Sam breathes deeply; feels a little dizzy. _Jesus **Christ**, Dean, after coming here every damn night…_ "Then you can tell me how to use it to change him back?"

She shakes her head shortly. "Not that one. There's another one you need to use."

"Do you have it? Can _I_ have it?"

"No," she says, and Sam swallows hard, but then-- "But I'll give it to you in exchange for that one." She nods downward, and Sam draws the vaguely flower-shaped pendant from his pocket.

"How do I know it'll work?" he asks. _How do I know I'm not about to hand over our only chance?_

She glances down at her hands briefly, then back up at him. "I never meant hurt to your or your brother," she says. "Jenny and I… It wasn't right of me to give it to her in the first place, but…" She spreads out her hands, palm up, in front of her. "Right and wrong don't always apply when… when there are more important things to consider." She pauses again, and her next words are soft, though not regretful. "Even if it _is_ selfish."

Sam places the pendant on the bench between them, and she dips a hand into her pocket, putting another down beside it.

"I'm sorry," she says. "For any harm caused to you or your brother over this."

Sam laughs briefly. "I think Dean would resent that apology," he says, and she grins.

Dean appears at his shoulder, flushed and out of breath. The collar of his flannel shirt's crooked, tee-shirt all pulled out of shape at the neck. "Ready?" he says.

"Yeah," Sam answers, "let's go."

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/42972.html


End file.
